WeBank and technology: a winning ticket!

The Banca del Gruppo Bipiemme has selected a team of technology and communication experts to create a new application to allow users to save time. Starting February 2nd, 6 experts will be meeting weekly to make available to one another their talent and genius facing users and technology buffs. Actually, the planning time will be visible in streaming on www.wepadproject.it. The following days, through the same link, it will also be possible to view a summaryof the work and exclusive confessional-like interviews with the 6 experts.

The WeBank reality was designed and created for users, once again at the center of a participatory initiative. Interaction will be the value in more than one innovative project . The most attentive and deserving user will also have the possibility to sit in on the planning and win an iPad.

We have taken a closer look at the initiative with Adriana Piazza, Responsible for Brand Marketing & Web Strategy Webank who has given us some interesting answers.

How did the WePad Project happen?

We wanted to imagine a project, particularly innovative in the Italian banking panorama. We designed it in line with our participatory bank model which we have been offering users on the Net for some time. So, we thought of 6 experts each from a different environment who we ask to meet and work together to reach a common goal. The team has 6 weeks to draft an iPad application that may improve or simplify the daily life of people. For that matter, time and money saving have been basic Webank elements for over 10 years. In doing so, inputs and comments of the public will be available, the users who comment will have a chance to influence the creative process of the experts, actively participating in the development of the idea (and the chance to physically participate in some brainstorming). The application will then be created at the expense of Webank and made available on the App Store free of charge.

WeBank and digital technology: a solid link. What’s the secret?

Probably, the courageous and innovative idea we started our business with in 1999: to reinvent, the with the digital revolution tools, the banking world in our country. In a little over ten years of business, Webank has perused, through several online operations and initiatives, the dream of a participatory bank, receptive to the demands of its clients. The WePad Project is the latest step to this long path of digital culture study and promotion: an innovative experiment in the contents and form that proves also Italy can boast excellence in technology and creativity.

What is the goal you have set ? A perfectly innovative application or the loyalty of your clients ?

The goal is a useful app for all, created by all. The use of the contents offered by the Net has been deeply articulated with the apps advent . Even online banking is experiencing a particularly interesting evolution thanks to smartphones and tablets. The sites, obviously, will continue to exist (and for a long time they will be the main access to contents and services):the app, in the meantime, already represents the modality of use on “mobile” devices, therefore forcing the suppliers of contents and services to re-elaborate the modalities of interaction with users and among users. The iPhone has surely represented a radical turn: for such reason Webank has focused on the Apple smartphone. The iPad is yet another historical evolution: not a "huge iPhone" (as someone defined it when it was first marketed) but a tool with its specific features (for which we have specifically studied and created an application).

What kind of response are you expecting from internauts? What is your target?

Having 200 subscribers on the Wepad Project (http://www.wepadproject.it) platform and many ideas published so far, even before the first brainstorming take off, represents an important result: it means we are already intercepting a diffused reflection, nourishing a broad confrontation, stimulating "big conversation". The app alone is only a tool: what we want to offer the users of the Net is the answer to a need, thatconsiders the advantages offered by peculiarity, in this case of the iPad.

What was the selection criteria for the six experts?

We wanted to go beyond the technicality of the app itself: for such reason the selection criteria was the heterogeneity of professional experience of the experts. The strong point (even commercial) of the iPad is its extreme easiness of use even on behalf of non experts: in such case we wanted to represent also the heterogeneity of all those users who, in six weeks time, will publish their ideas on www.wepadproject.it. Among the experts, there will obviously be a developer, to give informatics concreteness to the app itself during brainstorming. A huge creative challenge, to give the users of the Net the fruit of a collective elaboration free of charge. From this point of view, the concept of prosumer is enriched with even more profound meaning: we’ll wait and see.

Gianpiero Romanazzi